Full Assault, great solo and survival spec.

[Waagabond]

So I have been playing shield and some in assault, the normal stuff.

 

Since I have been solo roaming rather much with no healer AND, I had issues with the delay in warzones. Now for us in Europe this delay is caused by bioware having ALL servers in US, in Texas. Of course us Europeans is going to have delay.

The European servers must be placed in Europe. Netherlands is a good spot.

 

Back to assault and the reason I took it, to stay ranged.

 

Now there are two talents I wanted to highlight here, that I see none really take.

Neither Taugrim or others are even bothering lookiing at these, but I say that if you are solo especially, and even with healers, full assault or close to it, is very good.

 

There are two great survival talents here callsed:

 

Reflexive Shield: 2/2 100% to lower the CD on reactive shield by 3 seconds when taking damage, 1.5 second internal cd in between pulses.

 

This talent alone makes reactive shield on an assault specd Vanguard in warzones, going from 3 minutes to an average of 2 down to 1.5 minutes. This talent is very nice. All of a sudden your Reactive shield is available on demand in 75% of the cases you need it.

Enemies usually throw dots around as do we, you are almost constantly taking any sort of damage, even if just a little.

 

Adrenaline Fueled 2/2: 100% on EVERY crit you lower the cooldown by 6 seconds on Adrenaline Rush and Reserve powercells. 1.5 sec internal cd here as well.

Now, I honestly dont care about the powercells, but Adrenaline Rush does heal you for a nice amount.

 

In heavy fire fights, where I take some damage, recieve minor heals or just keep getting minor damage on me without being killed, my Adrenaline rush goes from a 3 minute cooldown to average 1 minute.

 

I have biochem, and Im using reusable medkits of course.

My Adrenaline rush is 50% of the time, off the cooldown before my 90 second medpack is.

This is HUGE.

Take into that reflexive shields and you have a great survival build, as an assault spec.

And since you are ranged you can much easier pick targets do damage and get out then for example a tactics specd vanguard, not to mention a shield spec

 

For me, there are countless of times enemies leave me alone cause they think a healer is on me, and they just choose another target.

No, its just that my cds are up so often, and Im not waiting to pop health kits until Im low, I top myself off when taking damage, to "trick" enemies into believing I am being healed.

Which means they just switch targets. Reactive shield, Medpack and adrenaline rush is part of that survival mechanism alot, and even if they continue on me, those 3 together means Im very often winnning 1 vs 2 or even 1 vs 3 fights I have come out of as a winner of.

 

Last thing: Assault Plastique. This talent is worth it. The damage this inflicts is the same as High Impact Bolt.

 

My rotation is, hammer strike to get plasma fire, follow up with assault plastique, fire off incend round...possible another hammer strike then I fire off an HIB.

When my HIB connects, the assault plastique is going off..causing an immense burst.

To see numbers where you do 6-7k damage at once when HIB and Assault Plastique goes off together is not uncommon. At this stage the target is below 30% most often and your incendiary round starts to really tick in, since you have Burn out.

 

There are several specs you can have as assault depending if you want to max rain of fire or not.

I recomend that if you only want 31 in assault that you just run with 1/3 rain of fire.

Reflexive shield and Adrenaline fueled is far far more important then 6% more damage on burning targets. That said, you can actually afford them as there is little else you should stick them in.

 

Talent spec

 

http://www.torhead.com/skill-calc#801ZMsZfhMrzGGrs.1

 

In this spec Im picking up 30 seconds shorter cd on Recharge cells.

This means its really up on demand. You very seldom run out of ammo.

 

Reason you take 2 more points into rain of fire is since it gives more damage then Intimidation, there really is nothing else to place it in unless you want shorter cd on cryo as well.

 

Above spec have 2 talent points left over. You can make it 4 points left over if you remove 2 points from rain of fire.

With those 2 points you can either get 6% more HIB damage, 4% more elemental damage or I recomend lowering the CD on Harpoon by 10 seconds.

 

As assault you seldom do use harpoon to pull in targets for extra damage, although stock s trike is nice. But harpoon pulls apart from Huttball, is a vital part of burning down Sith Inquisitors or Sages.

They really have 0 chance vs an assault specd vanguard. Riot strike, sure on 8 seconds, but make use of stuns, cryo and neural surge, and harpoon pull to disrupt.

 

 

The lovely fact with our dear Vanguard is that there are so many good specs out there for this class.

It depends on your playstyle.

 

2 assault specd vanguards playing together, focusing target, with assault plastique, incend and HIB...targets go down so fast there simply is no healer that can ever catch up, cause the burst is tremendous.

 

With my assault spec, 90% of the time Im #1 damage.

And Im not even focusing on damage much, again, reason I play a ranged vanguard is due to the delays I have in warzones. Going in with Gut and or stock strike regularly just wont do it, due to the delay. Im much better off at ranged, and thats where I found our those 2 nice talents I talk about above.

 

The amouont of times I have people I know tell me that I am getting healed thats why I can stay alive and provide damage and assist targets, is almost 60% of the games we play together. And when later looking back, we realize we either had no healer or he sure wasnt where I was.

Do NOT underestimate the healing adrenaline rush do. And do not underestimate the none willingness of enemies to hit on targets that is healed.

If you can trick enemies into believing you have a pocket healer somewhere, just for a few seconds, thats all you need to survive and make them hesistate, and they are "kaboom".

 

Loving the class....its just too many options:-) Do we even have a bad spec? I dont think so.

[SensualPanther]

reason I don't have interest in adrenaline fueled is cause I don't know how often I get crits, and 2 points is quite a bit when I can put it somewhere else. With that being said, how long is the cooldown now for adrenaline fueled for you?

 

Just curious

[Waagabond]

reason I don't have interest in adrenaline fueled is cause I don't know how often I get crits, and 2 points is quite a bit when I can put it somewhere else. With that being said, how long is the cooldown now for adrenaline fueled for you?

 

Just curious

 

In warzones, where I am active. My cool down on adrenaline rush is averege around 1 minute to 1.5 minutes. Instead of 3 minutes.

Reserve powercell is around a minute.

 

Im a very active player, I keep dots up on a few enemies then focus target healers or heavy dps, such as snipers or mercs.

I focus on crit in the gear and as such I crit very often. 30%+ crit helps.

 

My main thing here is, if you are anyway full assault, you wont be able to get Gut, and you are limited in your choices.

To gain some more damage over the survival of these talents is just plain rediciloous in my opinon. But then again, 33 assault I think is very viable.

I would generally spec 33 assault and rest into tactics, for extra crit, 9%, on elemental, and 60% extra armor pen on HIB.

The 33 points comes from placing 3/3 rain of fire as well, as there simply is no other tier 1 or 2 talents beyond the basics in tactics I would place over it.

 

2 points leftover means you can increase HIB by 6%, elemental by 4% or reduce cd on harpoon and pulsecannon by 10 seconds. I say the last 2 is the only viable choices.

 

Since they have fixed the delays, from today, in warzones, Im again thinking to go back toa shield spec for storm, and t hen go tactics for Gut.

 

23 shield and 18 assault, as much as this is a nice spec, I do not like the idea of having to spend more then 5 points in a talent tree that goes to complete waste, just to get incend round and a few other talents, where every talent in tactics will be useful.

 

23 shield and 18 tactics is a spec I also like, or 17 tactics 1 assault (stockstrike 4%).

 

Again, Vanguards strenght, apart from general strenght, is the amount of viable specs that is very strong.

There are around 10 good specs for this class, which is far more then the other classes have at their disposal.

[origional]

Since they have fixed the delays, from today, in warzones, Im again thinking to go back toa shield spec for storm, and t hen go tactics for Gut.

 

23 shield and 18 assault, as much as this is a nice spec, I do not like the idea of having to spend more then 5 points in a talent tree that goes to complete waste, just to get incend round and a few other talents, where every talent in tactics will be useful.

 

23 shield and 18 tactics is a spec I also like, or 17 tactics 1 assault (stockstrike 4%).

 

 

I'm running 21/18/2 and it seems pretty effective. It means missing out on a couple of things in the shield tree that I like but if your going to get storm you need a decent return on stock strike and gut.

[Waagabond]

I'm running 21/18/2 and it seems pretty effective. It means missing out on a couple of things in the shield tree that I like but if your going to get storm you need a decent return on stock strike and gut.

 

I really miss Storm and really like it and be able to guard a healer nearby.

 

But as much as you get Gut and crit from tactics, after some further investigation, really, assault would probably be the best bet to go in my opinoin.

 

The synergy between stockstrike, Ion Pulse and HIB is great between Shield and Assault.

 

23 shield/18 assault is my pref spec.

You can go 21/2/18 but I feel the 30% increased crit damage on stockstrike is preferable over 40% armor pen on HIB. Simply cause as a shield, storm spec you WILL stockstrike alot, and since as a Vanguard, most imps play Sorc anyway so its light or at times medium armor most of the time:-)

 

Anyway, 21/2/18 or 23/18 will probably be the way I will start to play now that the delays are gone. Earlier with 0.5 to 1 second delay on abilities, playing melee style just wasnt even on the map.

That said I really enjoy Assault spec.

[bliapis]

the delays are not gone. just much less frequent.

[Waagabond]

the delays are not gone. just much less frequent.

 

For me the difference is huge.

Earlier I used maybe 1 stockstrike per warzone. The delay prevented me from using this skill, at all.

 

Now, its part of my rotation when facing just about anyone.

 

Im Still assault as yes there have been some more lagg etc but I really believe a shield/assualt spec is going to be really strong.

 

31+ assault do have nice survival too though, with very short cd on adrenaline rush and reactive shield. And its a lot of fun.

But you are squishy. Compared to a shield tank, you are incredibly squishy.